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United Steelworkers, Pres: Not So Fast, Congress
Not So Fast, Congress
Posted: 01/19/2015 8:41 am EST
Instead of the plodding turtle he's normally satirized as, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is all cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof about Trade Promotion Authority, better known as Fast Track.
He said as Congress convened this month that he wants to fast track Fast Track. He intends to ’git ’er done so fast no one notices that with it, Republicans will provide, as McConnell put it, “an enormous grant of power. . .to a Democratic President.”
Fast Track is nothing more than Congress pulling a fast one on the American people. It’s a plan for lawmakers to abdicate their Constitutional responsibility to regulate international trade. With Fast Track, Congress shirks its duty to subject trade deals to lengthy line-by-line scrutiny, fulsome public hearings and amendment.
While gratifying Wall Street and multinational corporations, past Fast-Tracked trade deals have battered American workers as factories fled off shore, wages stagnated and layoffs multiplied. Fast Track is an outmoded strategy for indolent politicians. Workers in the 21st Century deserve in-depth deliberation over trade proposals to ensure jobs, the environment, food safety and national sovereignty are protected. Mitch needs to back track on Fast Track.
Mitch is in a big old hurry because he doesn’t want serious examination of several nearly completed trade deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11 Pacific Rim countries, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with European Union countries.
He wants the slogan “free trade” to lull Americans into glazed-eyed zombie approval. Free is great, right? Everybody’s for freedom! What could go wrong?
A lot, actually....
...Congress has Fast Tracked away its Constitutional obligations several times since Nixon offered lawmakers the opportunity to go to recess rather than get down to work. Mitch’s determination to quickly do it again now is particularly frightening because trade deals no longer are primarily about trade.
For example, only five of the 29 secretly negotiated chapters in TPP deal with trade. Supersized trade agreements now intrude on every area of life, from food safety to generic drugs to national sovereignty....
Full article~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/not-so-fast-congress_b_6496742.html
Posted: 01/19/2015 8:41 am EST
Instead of the plodding turtle he's normally satirized as, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is all cat-on-a-hot-tin-roof about Trade Promotion Authority, better known as Fast Track.
He said as Congress convened this month that he wants to fast track Fast Track. He intends to ’git ’er done so fast no one notices that with it, Republicans will provide, as McConnell put it, “an enormous grant of power. . .to a Democratic President.”
Fast Track is nothing more than Congress pulling a fast one on the American people. It’s a plan for lawmakers to abdicate their Constitutional responsibility to regulate international trade. With Fast Track, Congress shirks its duty to subject trade deals to lengthy line-by-line scrutiny, fulsome public hearings and amendment.
While gratifying Wall Street and multinational corporations, past Fast-Tracked trade deals have battered American workers as factories fled off shore, wages stagnated and layoffs multiplied. Fast Track is an outmoded strategy for indolent politicians. Workers in the 21st Century deserve in-depth deliberation over trade proposals to ensure jobs, the environment, food safety and national sovereignty are protected. Mitch needs to back track on Fast Track.
Mitch is in a big old hurry because he doesn’t want serious examination of several nearly completed trade deals, including the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) with 11 Pacific Rim countries, and the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) with European Union countries.
He wants the slogan “free trade” to lull Americans into glazed-eyed zombie approval. Free is great, right? Everybody’s for freedom! What could go wrong?
A lot, actually....
...Congress has Fast Tracked away its Constitutional obligations several times since Nixon offered lawmakers the opportunity to go to recess rather than get down to work. Mitch’s determination to quickly do it again now is particularly frightening because trade deals no longer are primarily about trade.
For example, only five of the 29 secretly negotiated chapters in TPP deal with trade. Supersized trade agreements now intrude on every area of life, from food safety to generic drugs to national sovereignty....
Full article~
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leo-w-gerard/not-so-fast-congress_b_6496742.html
